Smokestacks #1
(an excerpt from Connect, Volume 1 - Winter)
Just before we would turn left, over the river, towards the Michigan City Harbor, the base of one massive smokestack would fill the entire front window of my Dad’s red Taurus. The smokestack was stout and short, and once we got closer to the lake, we would see another one, tall and skinny; like two best friends. We used to call them the cloud-makers and the spotting of them from afar meant that we were about to arrive.
My Mom must have seen them too, from the backseat of her own parents’ car, and my Grandpa, the one who I never met, must have talked about them. I can imagine him telling tall tales about what they might be puffing about. I imagine what he would say would be met with giggles, or laughter. I imagine him gazing out the window smiling, holding a cigarette in between the fingers of his hand on the wheel; being his own kind of smokestack.
I think fondly of these stacks, as I sit in traffic on Lake Shore Drive and watch the clouds billow from the cold tops of buildings. Being on the other side of the year and the other side of the lake, these small puffs make me think of sailing, the sport that we all inherited from my smokestack Grandpa.
The weather varies from morning to morning, producing these streams of steam unique to the wind and the temperature, unique to the atmosphere of the day, unique to the atmosphere of the moment.
Just before we would turn left, over the river, towards the Michigan City Harbor, the base of one massive smokestack would fill the entire front window of my Dad’s red Taurus. The smokestack was stout and short, and once we got closer to the lake, we would see another one, tall and skinny; like two best friends. We used to call them the cloud-makers and the spotting of them from afar meant that we were about to arrive.
My Mom must have seen them too, from the backseat of her own parents’ car, and my Grandpa, the one who I never met, must have talked about them. I can imagine him telling tall tales about what they might be puffing about. I imagine what he would say would be met with giggles, or laughter. I imagine him gazing out the window smiling, holding a cigarette in between the fingers of his hand on the wheel; being his own kind of smokestack.
I think fondly of these stacks, as I sit in traffic on Lake Shore Drive and watch the clouds billow from the cold tops of buildings. Being on the other side of the year and the other side of the lake, these small puffs make me think of sailing, the sport that we all inherited from my smokestack Grandpa.
The weather varies from morning to morning, producing these streams of steam unique to the wind and the temperature, unique to the atmosphere of the day, unique to the atmosphere of the moment.
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